Author
Topic: The Game (Read 1474 times)

The idea behind the game is straightforward enough. The player starts by creating an avatar. It's initially a really low level character and the player doesn't really have a lot of input. It's all going on beneath the surface. Sorta forms itself, along some built in programming paths with heuristic learning and inputs from higher level players but, pretty soon the player has an increasing or decreasing degree of control over the little fella. If the player chooses to.

Otherwise he'll just mosey about and do his own thing in the game world. The new guy always spawns in the company of other characters, they'll provide inputs, suggestions, admonitions, encouragement, discouragement and training in the rules of the game. Whatever they might have decided those rules might be.

The rules of the game, aside for some general mechanical stuff, physics and environmental rules (There's a resource-gathering element, of course) are largely dictated by the players. It's a true sandbox game, one hundred percent open ended, aside from the one rule of the game - players only get one life. No respawns. No bonus credits.

The game is total immersion. Like all futuristic and shit with totally retina-realistic graphics, surround sound and pixel perfect feedback of all other sensory input. It's so real you'll feel as if you're there. If you take damage you'll feel pain. If you're driving a sports car with the top down, you'll feel the wind and the bugs smacking off your face.

Like I said, it's totally sandbox - no stated aim or objective. Pick something you want to do and go out and try to make it happen. The gameworld itself is largely designed by the players with organically evolving scenarios available to be engaged in, in a practically incalculable number of ways. But be warned - some of the other players take this game quite seriously.

They take it so seriously that some of them seem to actually forget they're playing a game at all. Worse still, some of them get hung up on the wider consequences of the one and only rule of the game. Players only get one life. No respawns. No bonus credits. And after their game is over? Well, to be quite honest nothing has ever been adequately proven, to this player at least. I wouldn't say I'm actually convinced there is a world outside of this game.

So given that that's the case, I figure I might as well pay the shit out of the game. Get my character advanced as many levels as possible. Gain skills and abilities, try to beat my highscore in as many sub-games as I think look interesting. Sooner or later I'll lose. Maybe I'll lose to a boss character or maybe I'll slip off a ledge and die but until then - IT'S PLAYTIME!!

Logged

Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCKAwful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart ContagionOctomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairmanwalking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy"And National Geographic got interested because National Geographic has the theory that the last century, discovery was basically finding things, and in this century, discovery is basically making things."-- Stewart Brand

By GM, he/she/it/they/them/ is there, if you are to believe they are. It really doesn't matter, the enviroment's live and the clock is ticking down.

You get presented with various choices, and you can keep doing them. Or not. It takes, effort and monotony to play the game a certain way all the time. You can forget how big the game world really is if you always fast travel. The developer really put a lot of work in though. Multiple routes and access points to all sorts of key locations for all kind of rewards. It's all about how you want to play.

The really good part is there all all kinds of bugs and exploits in the game. Those NPC's can and will do all sorts of interesting things under the right circumstances. Have fun with the dialogue tree to find out more!

Logged

Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Sometimes there's a huge fucking glitch in the game and massive amounts of NPC's start to fuck with each other. It's always been there in varying amounts. Could be petty theft, could be genocide. You might be near some. You might want to get the fuck away from that. You might want to stay. Depends on your starting roll I guess. Good luck with that.

Anyway, you'll meet a lot of NPC's. Some you'll like and care about, some..... not. It's a varied experience, just be careful how you treat them, they all have varying levels of memory.

Logged

Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Sometimes there's a huge fucking glitch in the game and massive amounts of NPC's start to fuck with each other. It's always been there in varying amounts. Could be petty theft, could be genocide. You might be near some. You might want to get the fuck away from that. You might want to stay. Depends on your starting roll I guess. Good luck with that.

Anyway, you'll meet a lot of NPC's. Some you'll like and care about, some..... not. It's a varied experience, just be careful how you treat them, they all have varying levels of memory.

I don't think of them as NPC's - They're all players. Whether they think they are or just carry on like mindless automatons is another matter.

« Last Edit: June 16, 2012, 09:23:52 am by P3nT4gR4m »

Logged

Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCKAwful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart ContagionOctomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairmanwalking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy"And National Geographic got interested because National Geographic has the theory that the last century, discovery was basically finding things, and in this century, discovery is basically making things."-- Stewart Brand

From the outside it is almost strange how much of a fascination the newer players take with the older players. That one guy who played for a relatively sort amount of time around 2000 in-game years ago is still being reverred to such an extent. Instead of playing they sit in their little pixelated houses and ask to be told how to live. And they only do that because as soon as they logged on the first time someone else told them to. Its like they are trying to be npcs.

Well of course they are. Being an NPC is the easiest thing ever. You have no real responsibilities, you have a single, predetermined track with the script written for you, and you generally leave very little impact on the world. Easy come, easy go.

No, it's much harder to Play the Game, because when you play, the Game plays back, and damn is it hard. The learning curve is preposterous and only gets harder as you keep leveling up, but the clever players, the good players, they find ways around the Grind. For them, the Grind is even worse than Not Playing. Instead, they poke at the rules, bending where they can, sidestepping when possible, and using every available cheat code.

The question then becomes twofold--is there a way to Win the Game? If so, how, and if not, what nice treats has the DM left for the Players in the endgame?

now remember that it's totally free to sign up, but once you're in there's ALL sorts of micro and macro expenditures and transactions you can make! Your experience of the game and the other players is greatly dependent on them in fact.

Some people are even selling scripts to allegedly get you into the game again, or play a better game, after you lose. It's SO sandbox that this is totally allowed!

There's also odd little Easter eggs EVERYWHERE that you can find. Naturally this has led to a vigorous market for maps!

The experience is so immersive, and the ST crew so cunning, that some people are experiencing totally different events even though they are in the same server room. I met one guy that actually believed that he was some kind of astronaut marine in service to an Emperor of somekind. I didn't believe him until he showed me his "Melta-pistol" and chased me around the room blowing HUGE holes in everything screaming at the top of his raspy lungs about my heresy... or something! For a minute there I really thought I really had lost THE GAME!

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality